Carpathian: An Event Group Thriller (Event Group Thrillers) Read online

  “Uh, Dmitri, the Romanian government has just signed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization charter. We are now a part of NATO, and they have designs on that pass for emergencies. They will have agreements in place with the locals of the pass that will secure their lands forever. As a matter of fact there will be NATO members in the mountains this weekend.”

  “Then we will have to invite some of them to the grand opening of Edge of the World.” Zallas smiled and when he saw his small joke didn’t play well he lost that smile just as fast. “Politics are my problem, Janos. The securing of the land is also my problem, and everything is lining up perfectly. We should have not only a fine opening for many influential men and women, but also a very good time.”

  Zallas walked away and the two Romanians once again exchanged worried looks as they both turned and looked out of the expansive dome toward the mountain above them.

  Several loud reports were heard in the valleys of the mountain that night of mist and darkness. The gunshots faded to nothing after twenty minutes but the howling continued on throughout the night.

  The Golia were on the move from the high peaks of the Carpathians.

  EVENT GROUP COMPLEX, NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA

  The two desperadoes of the Event Group that night had broken regulations again. Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III and Pete Golding had used illegal means to bypass security and broken into the Ark. The darkened drinking establishment was empty of all personnel at four-thirty A.M. and they had the run of the place. The rebuke they had received for assisting Alice had both scientists feeling hurt and bewildered.

  Both men had tall glasses of something Ellenshaw mixed up that he claimed took the life of Jim Morrison back in 1971. After swallowing the multicolored drink Pete grimaced and forced his stomach to stay where it was designed to be anchored—in his body.

  “God, that was awful,” Pete cried.

  Ellenshaw looked nonplussed. He took another pull from his glass, then quickly set it down on the bar and started frantically searching for his glasses in his wrinkled lab coat.

  A pair of hands magically appeared and then reached over Ellenshaw’s shoulder and pulled the scientist’s glasses down from where they had been perched on his head. The wire-rimmed spectacles were placed on his nose and that was when the clear vision of Will Mendenhall appeared to Charlie Ellenshaw. Both he and Pete had their eyes widen until the lieutenant thought they would pop from their heads. Standing next to him was a zoologist from the San Diego Zoo neither Pete nor Charlie could recall meeting personally but knew by reputation and from their copies of the academic roster.

  “Doc, why didn’t you and Dr. Frankenstein come to Ryan or me with this Alice investigation? If you had you wouldn’t be in Director Compton’s doghouse right now.”

  The computer genius looked almost as wounded as he did inebriated. “We … we thought … you and Ryan would tell on us,” Pete Golding mumbled as he tried to no avail to focus on Will’s face.

  “Then you really don’t know me and Ryan all that well, do you,” Mendenhall said while staring at both men. “The difference is, boys, Ryan and I would never have been caught. You two were. Now get up and come with me, you have a meeting to attend.”

  Ellenshaw’s head shot up from the bar. “It’s…” He looked at his wristwatch but couldn’t focus on it at all. “It’s … it’s … boy it’s early.”

  “Come on, the colonel’s waiting for you.”

  Both scientists exchanged worried looks as they resigned themselves to further humiliation at the hands of the man they respected—and feared—most in the world: Jack Collins.

  “Come on, it will only hurt for a split second and then your minds will go blank, almost like they are right now,” Mendenhall said as he tried to hide his smile.

  “Oh, God,” Pete and Charlie said simultaneously.

  * * *

  Jack was the first one to arrive at the vault. On his way down he relieved the security man at the arch and sent him away to other duties on the vault levels. This would be a private gathering of the Event Group’s best, or as Collins himself thought, the people most expected to go outside the lines of Group regulations. As Jack stepped over the steel threshold of the vault he looked to the center of the room and saw the glass enclosure that held one of the strangest specimens of animal life the Group had ever come across and the subject of the meeting.

  He looked past the specimen and up into the darkness of the viewing gallery high above the floor of the vault. The area had seating for students numbering a hundred as did most of the vaults at the complex. Jack’s eyes lingered on the darkness there for a moment and then his attention was taken away by three people moving into the vault.

  Alice Hamilton walked through the stainless steel opening and into the small enclosure. She was flanked by her closest friends, Virginia Pollock and Sarah McIntire. Jack nodded a greeting and then directed them to a table that had been set up on his orders. Collins smiled at Alice and then pulled out a chair for her. Alice returned his smile but the colonel could tell she was apprehensive. He was sure she expected to be set up by him and possibly Niles to convince her and the others that her proof of an animal that has existed alongside mankind for thousands of years just wasn’t enough for an Event to be called.

  Jack looked up and saw a shaky Charlie Ellenshaw preceded by Pete Golding step into the vault. They both stood in the doorway with their eyes not focusing on any one thing inside the hermetically controlled environment. Collins shook his head.

  “Lieutenant, escort Baby Face Nelson and Mr. Dillinger to their seats, please.”

  Mendenhall smiled as did Virginia Pollock as Ellenshaw and Golding were led to two seats in the middle of the table as if to their own private inquisition.

  Jack paced to the head of the table and retrieved Alice’s thick file. He walked to the enclosure that held the specimen recovered from Bordeaux, France, just after World War I. He opened the folder, took a deep breath, and then looked up at Alice, who held Jack’s gaze without shame and without flinching.

  “Europa, Vault 22871—describe the history of its contents, please.”

  “Specimen stored inside Vault 22871 was discovered in Bordeaux, France, on December 11, 1918, by American Expeditionary Forces after the close of World War I. Specimen is believed to be part wolf but verification has not been confirmed by Department 5656 staff. The object was recovered during excavations by American forces and returned to the United States for analysis. The specimen has been declared a hoax perpetrated on the villagers of that region three hundred years before. Said specimen is scheduled for decommission and storage at the Virginia depository for Department 5656.”

  “Professor Ellenshaw,” Jack said in a voice somewhat louder than normal startling Charlie until everyone present thought he had a stroke. “Please step up to the enclosure and describe what you know about the subject matter inside.”

  Charlie had seen this vault and examined the wolf no fewer than fifty times. The object always held a special place in the hearts of anyone who examined it. He also knew that the specimen had been ridiculed by every lettered academic in the Group and even some out of it to the point that he always voiced no opinion on it until Alice came to him and asked for his help. He himself was always afraid of even more ridicule toward his rather unorthodox department of Cryptozoology.

  The remains of the animal were deposited on a white satin cloth inside the glass chamber. The beast was curled in a fetal position. There was very little of the deep black fur that once covered the animal. The skull, with the animal’s nose tucked under the front paws, made the skeletal remains look as if it had just curled up and died. What was amazing about the exhibit was that the wolf had to have been eight hundred pounds when alive. Although shrunken with age and diminished by decomposition, the animal would have clearly stood well over six and a half feet long, or as in this case, almost seven feet in height.

  “What we have inside the specimen case is what is typically known
as Canis lupus, a relative of the jackal, coyote, and even the domesticated dog. This particular specimen has been tested out no fewer than five hundred times and has been tagged with and most closely resembles the North American timber wolf. However, fossil analysis cannot pinpoint the exact species of wolf.” Charlie tried but could not stop the series of hiccups that erupted unbidden to his description.

  “Europa, Slide 7879098, please,” Jack said as he shot a quick glance into the student seating above them in the darkened gallery and then looked away.

  “Yes, Colonel Collins.”

  Before Jack could thank Europa the entire wall illuminated with slides of X-rays and CAT scans that had been done on the animal for the past one hundred years. The slides were placed on a continuous circle of high-definition monitors. As the slides came up the lights dimmed and that afforded Collins a quick look at Alice, who sat stoically between Sarah and Virginia. She had the look of a woman sitting at a defense table and that made Jack nervous—that perhaps the old woman had given up and that didn’t suit Collins at all.

  “Professor Ellenshaw, what is the most obvious anomaly on this particular specimen?”

  Charlie held a hand to his mouth as he tried to control his hiccups.

  “Well, to anyone who has ever studied how the wolf works, plays, and eats, they can easily see that this particular specimen was born with two pelvic bones and two differing hip bones. Both made to easily slide one bone from the hip socket to easily slide into another. In other words we have two very distinct hip and pelvic bones. These bones are supposed to act like a snake’s jaw, unhinging itself so it can consume prey larger than its mouth. Well, these particular hip and pelvic bones act in the same way. You see the socket that is empty on this X ray just forward of the rear socket. Well, this leg bone is supposed to remain intact at all times because the wolf is a quadruped. It is designed to run on all fours. Now this animal,” he switched positions and pointed to a clear X-ray of the beast, “if we are to believe what we see has the capability to dislocate its upper thigh bone from its socket and then slide that thigh bone into the secondary socket forward of the original. As a model you can actually see the grooves that have been made by the constant movement of leg and hip bones into varying sockets.”

  “Bringing the leg into proper alignment with its body, making the beast capable of walking and running upright,” Alice said with a defiant look in her eyes that Jack was pleased to see.

  Charlie nodded toward Alice. “Yes, ma’am, that would be the result.”

  “But you disagree?” Collins asked, knowing that Charlie’s blind faith in Alice would not stop him from voicing what he really thought of the animal and its validity.

  “I … I … yes, I disagree. This is not a species of animal that ever walked the earth. There is nothing in the fossil record that shows any animal in history with this capability. The closest resemblance is with the bear, which is capable of walking upright at times of defense, but the animal of course cannot maintain that posture for an extended time.”

  “Because it wasn’t designed to,” Alice put in. “This animal obviously was. Through many millions of years they have adapted to use this magnificent ability to survive in harsh conditions and terrain.”

  All turned toward Alice as the light of the slides reflected off her eyes.

  “I am quoting your own notes, Alice, and you have listed a professor of zoology from the University of Toronto. ‘No animal was ever designed to do what this beast would have been capable of doing. If it did what we would be looking at is what our legends described as a werewolf,’” Jack said and then turned his attention back to Ellenshaw. “What other anomaly stands out to you, Professor?”

  “Well, this particular scan of the animal’s paws, or in this case camouflaged paws. As you see this is also a very big impossibility as there has never been any animal outside of science fiction that has an articulated digit system. The very same system we humans and primates have. Only this is perfect. You see in this X-ray how the bones curl inward until it forms a paw shape. On the outside of the fingers when they are curled in for running, we assume anyway, are what we describe as pads, just like the toes of your dog, thick pads for protection against the rough terrain in which an animal like this would run. When the wolf would supposedly walk upright these particular paw pads are not needed, so the beast had the capability of extending actual and very articulated fingers.”

  Collins stopped in front of Alice and then nodded his head.

  “Okay, Alice, this is your chance. Convince me.”

  Charlie and Pete exchanged glances but Alice looked at Jack with defiance in her eyes and then she smiled her old smile. It was like she was going into teaching mode, a job she handled often in her years at the Group. She stood and relieved Jack of her file. She opened it and then placed it on the glass top of the enclosure.

  “I never thought about this vault twice, even when I first saw it in 1946. It didn’t hold any interest for me. Then everything changed one night in Hong Kong. Garrison and I were…”

  Collins listened to Alice tell her tale of the yacht Golden Child, and how the disaster came about that long-ago night in the cold waters of the Pacific. She ended her talk by showing around the small chip of block with the animal bone inside the petrified specimen.

  “And it was that night which sparked your interest in this supposed hoax?” Collins asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Doctors Ellenshaw and Golding, as men of science I know you both are not believers in this animal. But I see doubt in your reactions … why?”

  Pete and Charlie exchanged a look and then Pete turned and spoke. “Because Alice believes it.” He looked at her again and nodded. “And because I believe she is the most intelligent woman I have ever met. That’s why we are now doubting the fossil record. We may not fully believe in the animal, but we do this lady.”

  Jack turned to Ellenshaw again. “Professor, you believe in some wild things. You have even gone as far as proving the existence of some these animals we discovered on varying missions around the world. Charlie, I will ask you point-blank if you believe in werewolves?”

  The question took everyone in the vault off guard. Sarah for her part looked furious that Jack could be so cavalier about the subject that he had turned this into a joke just to show how foolish Alice has been. Virginia Pollock went so far as to stand up in protest, but Alice laughed and then waved Virginia back into her seat.

  “No. I believe in many things,” Ellenshaw answered, “but an animal that has the ability to change appearance into something it is not, not just in camouflage or the changing of skin colors, it is impossible.”

  “And yet because it is Mrs. Hamilton you believe?”

  “Yes, as Pete said, I believe in her.”

  “Thank you, Charlie.” Jack looked at Alice and pointed to the file. “Alice, what you did when you placed our agent in jeopardy is open a closet that should have remained closed. To take a chance on exposing our man at the Vatican over something that is not a national security issue for which reason we, including yourself, placed him at the Vatican in the first place, is an act that could end this department for now and all time. The president would shut us down in a moment if he knew we may have sacrificed an agent in the field for what, werewolves?”

  With a glance at Sarah he could see that she and everyone else was growing a little furious at the attack on Alice. He continued.

  “But then again it’s not just werewolves you’re after here, is it?” He moved to his left and looked up at the darkened gallery above, and then at Alice. “There is something pushing you, Mrs. Hamilton, something you’re covering up by this wolf aspect. There’s more to this fairy tale, am I correct? There is a legitimate reason that would send this immediately into an Event declaration, but because you have even less evidence of this particular aspect of your case you chose to go the animal route to that declaration. But now you see that’s not enough.” He looked at the older woman and locked his
eyes with her own.

  Alice finally realized what it was the colonel was attempting. She smiled so only Jack could see and he returned the gesture with a wink. Alice momentarily glanced into the darkness of the upper gallery. She raised her left eyebrow and shook her head, and then nodded at Jack.

  “Yes, much more to the fairy tale.”

  “Let’s start in the middle of this thing. What is in that report filed by agent Goliath at the Vatican?” Jack asked as he reached into his pocket for the message sent by Captain Everett less than an hour before this meeting started.

  Alice opened her extensive file and then pulled out a three-page report.

  “This was found in Greece. It is an account by a Roman soldier who later became a powerful senator. This account gives credence to the beast that lies under this glass. Europa will read the account as listed by this soldier. You will have to suspend your belief while you piece this together in your minds. This account was uncovered in the ruins of the senator’s house in Macedonia sealed in jars and stored as if the senator wanted the tale told, but was ashamed to have it publicly recorded in his lifetime. The original report was later criticized by the Papal See and the Holy Roman Empire and done away with, until our agent found it among the list of items we wanted searched for. This keyword ‘wolf’ was inserted by me. Goliath searched and found this from the eyewitness account of Centurion Marcus Paleternus Tapio, future senator of Rome.”

  Jack leaned against the wall and watched as the report came up on the circular monitors that ringed the vault along with a Renaissance rendering of the famous Senator Tapio.

  “This is factual history, as Roman officers never fudged a report of resistance anywhere in the empire. So what you read is an account of that night. It started in some of the worst weather seen in that region in a hundred years and…”